


what more do you want, insatiable?

by tokyonightskies



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alley Sex, Attraction, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Size Difference, Sloppy Makeouts, Torture, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 12:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10386891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyonightskies/pseuds/tokyonightskies
Summary: Tokyo’s on the threshold of winter.Kaneki stuffs his hands in the pockets of his coat and keeps his head down, crossing the street under the bright glare of the skyscrapers and their video screens. There’s a nip in the evening air. People walk around him in a brisk pace, but don’t encroach on his personal bubble, and the punctuated peeping of the traffic lights speeds up as the green light starts to flicker. When he’s back on the boardwalk, someone catches his eye, a familiar someone in a gray coat standing at the brightly-lit shop window of a Dunkin’ Donuts.This might be his only chance. It’s stupid and rash, but his hands are trembling in his pockets and Kaneki just… wants.-- or what do you do with an attraction like this?





	

**Author's Note:**

> there are gritty amoneki handjobs /somewhere/ in this one-shot. i've spent way too much time on this thing.

.

i.

Kaneki gets the wind knocked out of him when the ghoul investigator slams him over the head with the end of his quinque, his knees buckle and give out, making him land flat on his belly and thud his chin _hard_ on the wet, stone underground. His bones protest the battering they were forced to endure. With no small effort, he manages to turn his head sideways and watches raindrops pelt down on the pair of nicely-polished dress shoes the ghoul investigator wears as he came to stand in his line of vision.

There’s a calm resignation to the ghoul investigator’s voice when he says, “I don’t have time to waste on you.”

But the gears in Kaneki’s mind are churning fast, _there’s too much at stake for him to fail here_ —and images of _Touka-chan, Hinami-chan_ rush to the forefront of his mind, so his hand darts out to grab onto the investigator’s ankle in a desperate attempt to stall for _more_ time. He can hear the ghoul investigator gasp for breath and then with his expression contorted into a snarl, a wedge driven between his furrowed brows and a dip to the corners of his mouth, he speaks words with thinly-veiled contempt, _why, you_ …

_I mustn’t let him pass_. _If I can just do something about that…_  

He sees how the ghoul investigator holds onto the shaft of his quinque with both hands and raises the weapon above him—and he’s reminded of the knights in arthurian tales, the plate of their armor gleaming gray in the pale sunlight of an english afternoon and their heavy two-handers stained red with monsters’ blood. The proverbial sword of damocles hangs above his head.

  _But I don’t nearly have enough strength_.

Then the quinque bears down on him like a muller onto wheat berries; his skull cracks open, and a searing, white-blinding pain robs him momentarily of sight. His grip goes slack and his hand falls back onto the wet stone. Blood pours from the gaping wound at the crown of his head, down to his temple, the inner corner of his left eye, along the bridge of his nose, tastes it on his lips, between his teeth.

_That’s right._ He stirs, determined, a faint hitch of the shoulders, a scowl on his face. _There’s no way around it, is there?_ Kaneki opens his eyes. _If that’s how it’s going to be, then just this once…_ And he brings his hand to the zipper that strikes along the grotesque grin on his mask. _I’ll embrace you, the person within me…_ He yanks it open to reveal his mouth.

“Rize-san!”

Kaneki stumbles upwards, and after finding a precarious balance on his own two feet, starts to chase after the retreating figure of the ghoul investigator, who’s almost indistinguishable from his surroundings with that gray coat of his in the rain. He’s roaring as he gains momentum. The ghoul investigator pauses, looks over his shoulder and as he catches him running, whirls around to stomp the blunt head of his quinque into Kaneki’s ribs.

He skids backwards, dragging his fingertips raw over the stone tiles, and pushes himself upwards and onwards.

His mind is fogged up in a haze of _hunger_ , and he launches himself at the ghoul investigator in desperate abandonment, legs winding to wrap tight around the man’s waist and hands coming to grip at the man’s shoulders. Like a rabid dog that caught a whiff of blood, Kaneki presses his maw to the bridge of the investigator’s left shoulder and sinks his teeth through the fabric of his coat, into his skin. He bites down _hard_ , and the taste of foreign blood explodes into the cavern of his mouth, and then he _tears_ out a chunk of flesh, swallowing the thread and skin and meat.

Kaneki’s never tasted _anything_ like this before and there’s a stab down his stomach, and all he can think of is _more_.

The ghoul investigator manages to throw him off and he crashes down to the ground again, on his back, and his shoulder blades ache at the harsh collision. He gets back up again. _I feel like my appetite’s going to consume me._ Kaneki’s panting, his shoulders are hunched and his head is angled downwards, chest heaving as he struggles greedily for breath. _I’m slipping into an indulgent rampage._ Something tingles at the base of his spine, bubbles there until it bursts open his skin and his kagune slithers out. _But I won’t lose sight of the person I am,_ and his body protests at the thoughts, the flavor still fresh in his mouth.

His heart stutters against the bars of his ribcage, as if to say, this _too_ is who you are.

With the investigator stunned in disbelief, Kaneki dashes forwards, the strands of his kagune curl together to block an incoming attack and sparks dance at the impact. They go around in circles and when the ghoul investigator lashes out at him with his quinque, his kagune quickly moves to parry again and again, and aims to blow the weapon straight from his hands. _If I have this much strength…_

“Don’t take me for a fool!”

It’s over when the ghoul investigator makes the mistake of sweeping his quinque low over the stones for an attack. His kagune knocks the weapon into the air and it breaks into two. Kaneki feels his lungs constrict from the exertion and the two broken pieces of quinque collide to the ground behind him. _Now…_ His eye stops throbbing as the black bleeds out of his sclera. _Now he can no longer fight._ His nerves are frazzled with pain and he brings a palm to his upper arm, wincing. It’s over, he thinks, relieved.

Something warm slips between the knobs of Kaneki’s spine when the investigator shifts, the fight still not knocked out of him.

It’s too heady, too _heated_ , this feeling that blankets and warms him despite his drenched clothes, his cold skin and his chattering teeth. Kaneki looks at the ghoul investigator, at the clench of his jaw, at the gleam of a ghost in his eye, at the resolve in his posture and _Kaneki wants._ Desire stabs at his stomach like hunger does, or maybe hunger stabs at his stomach like desire does, or maybe they’re one and the same after all.

 The ghoul investigator says with a voice of steel, “If the foe is before you, even if it costs you your arms and legs—”

“Please run _away_ ,” Kaneki cries, and holds his right hand, trying to keep his entire body from shaking, and the ghoul investigator _blanches_. “If this keeps up any longer, I’m going to kill you.”

The strands of his kagune spasm, coil together like a grapevine at his side, he shouts, “Please! Run away!”

But when the ghoul investigator staggers to his feet, _don’t you mock me! I would never run away from a ghoul,_ the _want_ translates into the nervous wringing of his kagune strands, into the tremble of his wrist, and Kaneki feels his control hanging by a thin thread.

“Hurry!” He snaps, and the whiplash of his kagune sends the investigator skidding over the underground.

The ghoul investigator tumbles to a halt on his knees and one elbow, breathing haggardly, pressing a hand to the open wound across his chest. Blood soaks into the gray of his coat and trickles between his fingers. Kaneki yells – _Go!_ – and rasps – _Please…_ – and when the investigator looks up at him with gritted teeth, he outright begs.

_Don’t make me a murderer._

He manages to get upright, unsteady on his own two feet, and staggers away, occasionally throwing wary glances over his shoulder as he goes. Kaneki’s gaze is hawkish, glued to the man’s back, and when the man’s gone from his sight, he sinks down on his knees. His kagune twitches and the tentacles fan open above his bowed body, searching for the flesh they have been denied.

ii.

Kaneki searches for the investigator’s taste in the hollow of his inner cheeks, behind his teeth, against the flat of his palate. _You want_ _flesh_ , Rize insists hotly and her laughter echoes inside his skull, and Kaneki realizes she’s not wrong, in a sense at least. He desperately drags himself up by the thin bars of the metal rail, half-leaning over like he’s seasick and vomits incoherent strings of words – _Flesh, I need flesh!_ – and – _If, I don’t do something…_ – and when a that vague feeling of being watched trickles to the base of his spine, he asks aloud if someone’s there.

Pushing himself upright so the hood of his vest slips off the back of his head, he speaks in a dead woman’s voice, “I’m awfully hungry right now.”

After skillfully unfastening the snaps of his mask, he cranes his neck backwards in a painful angle and taunts, “You know?”

In the blink of an eye, Kaneki’s crossed the gap between them and has his kagune pushing a hole through the other man’s chest. His eyes are wide-open, but what he _sees_ doesn’t register until the man’s taken off his beaked mask and stands bare-faced before him. _Yomo-san._ Tears streak down his bloodied face, jaw unhinged, mouth _agape. What have I done?_ Rize’s voice is quieted down to but a mere murmur against the inside of his skull, demure like the person he thought her to be, once. His left eye stops throbbing in its socket.

“Eat this.”

Yomo-san hands him a small package, cardboard paper tied up tidy with a string, and it weighs deceptively light on the palm of his hand. Even in the rain, he can pick up the mouthwatering smell of _meat._

“You’ll feel better,” Yomo-san says calmly and Kaneki’s kagune fades away into _blood_ red mist.

His fingers tremble when he tears at the wrapping paper and he’s having difficulties breathing through his nose when he tears into the meat, hungry, but the texture’s cold and chewy and hard between his aching teeth, and the taste’s not what he _wants_ it to be.

At the very least, it sates his hunger.

iii.

Some nights Kaneki wakes up from his dreams about the ghoul investigator.

Sweating and panting and always achingly _hard_ under the covers of his bed. He doesn’t know which dreams scare him more in their intensity; the ones where he tears into the man or the ones where he lets the man tear _at him_.

Kaneki’s reasonably sure he’s not a sadomasochist.

But right now, at three in the morning, that semi-certainty doesn’t will away the persistent boner nestled flush against the elastic band of his underwear, and that doesn’t chase away the lingering image of the ghoul investigator’s strong fingers on his hips either, dipping down the V of his thighs, towards his cock.

_Coffee,_ he thinks helplessly, _I need a cup of coffee_.

He swallows and the soft click becomes deafening in the dead silence of his apartment. Then, he slowly pulls the covers off his legs and puts one bare foot on the cold floor, and then the other, stands up and shuffles to the kitchenette, flips on the light. The movements are comforting in their familiarity; grind the beans, boil the water, set up the coffeepot, etcetera.

When the scent of coffee wafts through his apartment, Kaneki breathes in deep and feels the tension in his chest unwind.

iv.

One night Kaneki simply _gives in_.

He fucks into his own palm, imagining it to be the ghoul investigator’s, and he comes hard at the thought of being shoved down wet, uncomfortable stones, bracketed between the ground and the weight of the investigator’s body at his lower back, a cock hard-pressed against his ass. His fingertips clench into the sheets and he turns away, head into the pillow, lower lip between his teeth when he comes quietly. Back arched, legs stretched out and heels dug into the mattress, he allows his orgasm to white out his eyesight for a blissful moment.

_It isn’t enough_ , some part of him whispers – his stomach, maybe, Rize maybe, _his heart_ maybe, – _it’ll never be enough._

v.

Yamori takes him. Yamori _breaks_ him.

Steel snaps clean through the skin of his toes, bites through the bone. He trembles as a dizzying pain flares through him, shaking in the chair, desperately trying to get away from Yamori and his pincers. There’s this sickening squelching sound when the ghoul gleefully pulls Kaneki’s piggy toe off and then chucks it into the bucket. Nausea claws at the back of his throat. He retches, bile thick on his tongue, a clucking sound stuck between his own two ears, an involuntary spasm of his chest, but no vomit nor gal comes dribbling out.

Kaneki keeps counting, from thousand down to zero by the sevens.

He puts the maw of the pliers to Kaneki’s ring toe, the metal’s slick with his blood and its bite still stings. Kaneki squints his eyes shut behind the blindfold and grits his teeth in response. His hands struggle in their binds.

It never stops hurting and it never starts hurting any less either; his fingers and toes grow back after Yamori forces the cold meat down his throat, past the wall of his aching teeth. Rize reaches out to him afterwards, tugs the blindfold from his sensitive eyes and smiles down at him sardonically. It’s white all around them, until the door to the theater opens once more. Kaneki’s so tired of being the pawn on this chessboard.

“You’re a fine one, Kaneki-kun.” It sounds suspiciously like praise. He trembles harder when Yamori takes that terrifying hockey mask off. “Would you like to know why I’m so… personal to you?”

His hockey mask falls to the checkered floor tiles. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this or not,” Yamori says in a deceptively conversational tone as he rounds him like a wild cat, “But you have remarkable regenerative abilities.” Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and a mouth close to his ear. “And it’s all thanks to Kanou’s experiment.”

Kaneki can’t stop _shaking_ ; Yamori’s so close that he can hear him sniffing at him, can feel the hot exhale of breath on the arch of his ear.

“He turned you into a ghoul using Rize,” Yamori tells him and removes his hand from Kaneki’s shoulder, cracks his finger. “One-eyed. Rize’s scent. That’s who you are, Kaneki-kun.”

His eyesight’s blurred from the tears and he hears something slithering close to his ear, his teeth are chattering and soft, scared little noises escape him. Yamori speaks again, “Have you heard of the red-headed Chinese centipede? I feel like letting it wriggle around in your ear. You don’t mind, do you?”

“N-no…” He stutters, daring to glance at the centipede from his peripheral. “Don’t… Please, I beg you.” There’s only agony from that moment onwards, a stumble of words, pleas, movement and Yamori’s laughter echoing around them in the large room. Tears and snot slide down his mouth, his chin, and _he wants to die_.

Rize touches his face then, and plants a seed of _doubt_ into his heart.

There’s a hand crowning the top of his head, yanking him back to look at the two persons wiggling on the floor, tied up in heavy, iron-clad chains.

“All suffering in this world is born from an individual’s incompetence.” Kaneki tries to look away, but Yamori forces him to keep watching, fingers nestled in his hair, and he continues, “The person who told me that was a _real_ piece of shit. But right now, I’m grateful to him.”

“I’ve come to understand something rather well these last days, Kaneki-kun.” _He keeps shaking_. “Never mind your physical capabilities, your mental fortitude is unexpectedly tough as well.”

Yamori’s fingertips dig into his skin. “So, I came up with a little plan to test that resolve. A man and a woman.” He cracks his finger. “Who love each other very much!”

He’s been given the choice, but he can’t decide. Yamori keeps goading him on with a grip so firm on his hair that the roots _ache_ , and of the two ghouls on the ground, the man regards him with a determined expression on his face, _pick me_ , it says. Kaneki wants to shake off the hand on top of his head, clenching his eyes shut, crying. _I can’t be the one that decides something like that! Wouldn’t that just be the same as me murdering them?!_

            Pick one! Pick one! Pick one! Pick one! The man? Or the woman? Right? Or is it left? Pick one!

With his refusal to choose, Yamori’s patience seems to have frayed to but a single strand. Each footfall is punctuated, a staccato, and resounds in the red-framed dome of the room. “Watch closely, now,” he demands, coming to a halt in front of the two ghouls on the floor.

In one smooth movement, he’s picked Haru up from the ground and holds a fist around her throat, clamoring, “This one? How about this one?! No?” He looks at Kaneki from over his shoulder. “Come on! Pick one! I said pick one! She’s gonna die! Well, Kaneki?”

He screws his eyes shut once again, refusing to watch how the woman struggles against the fingers around her neck, and tries to block out the insistent taunts Yamori sprouts.

              Come on! Come on! Pick one! Pick one!

His eyes snap back open. There’s a cacophony of sounds; his erratic heartbeat, Yamori’s voice, the shuffling of the ghoul on the ground, then another voice, _pick me, pick me, pick me_ , followed inevitably by the sickening _crunch_ of Haru’s trachea, crushed. Yamori lets go and she falls to the floor. _She broke, didn’t she?_ He watches how Yamori slowly lifts the man up by the hairs on his head. _And it’s all your fault._ His kagune skewers through the ghoul’s belly like a scorpion’s stinger, reaching up to the ceiling.

Kaneki has nothing left to give, but something should, and something snaps.

vi.

He sees all the people he wants to protect: Touka-chan, Hinami-chan, Hide _._ And Kaneki gives in, makes a choice, pounces from his chair and pushes Rize down the field of flowers, pinning her down by the wrist and the weight of his body. _I am… a ghoul._ Everything’s bleeding red around him.

Except for his hair, that turned white instead.

vii.

Everything happens fast after that, a blur: Kaneki bites at Yamori and leaves him for dead on the checkered floor tiles, prevents Ayato from hurting Touka-chan, joins Aogiri and helps them take over the ninth and tenth ward and free Naki from the CCG escort.

There’s no time for pause, always on the move.

It’s only when he participates in the assault on Cochlea and gets the _shit_ beaten out of him by Shachi, when he’s surrounded by the fog of his thoughts, with the stench of dead ghouls in his nose, the taste of them in his mouth, that he’s reminded of his _want._ He crashes into a senior investigator and inadvertently saves Ayato’s life, a burst of smoke rises from the ground upon collision and he drags his companion away.

Kaneki’s become a centipede now.

They clash ferociously, and he _can’t think_ , only feels how the strands of his now-black kagune strike at the senior investigator’s armor, at his red-gleaming quinque. Wind brushes through his hair when he gains speed and falls to perform another attack. He’s grinning and then he’s grimacing when the weapon tears through his lower back. Kaneki drops to the ground face-first, his kagune gone.

_I still have plenty of quality time left to spend with my family._

His kagune bubbles at his lower back, then the pods _pop_ and four new strands stretch out. Kaneki claws at the solid ground, suspended in memories, muttering _m-my fingers… on the bench…_ He pushes himself upright, grinning despite the blood dripping from his mouth down his chin. With his kagune trashing wildly around him, he shakily gets up on his feet. _C-centipedes… i-in my ears._ Something tears through his flanks; two large kagune strands fashioned after a centipede’s body.

            _How many kagune sacs does he have?!_

Kaneki just laughs and continues rambling, _a thousand minus… a-a thousand minus…_ He bows his head, smiling away the haze of pain and hunger, _s-seven…_ Behind him, the senior investigator readies his quinque and squares his shoulders, murmuring against the white noise of Kaneki’s kagune wiggling about, _of all the ghouls, I’ve ever faced…_

With a glance over his shoulder, Kaneki finishes his question, “… seven is what?”

“You’re the craziest one yet,” the senior investigator replies dryly.

He cracks his finger. In a flash, he’s behind the investigator and pinches his body between the strands of his kagune, making a dark sound that’s supposed to be a laugh when the investigator’s armor slowly starts to break under the pressure.

Gas steadily shrouds the room from through the ventilation shafts, and Kaneki lowers the senior investigator to the floor, digs into the black plating around the investigator’s torso, hungry still.

It’s blissfully quiet in his head as he crunches parts of the armor between his teeth, ataraxia. His kagune slithers around, making soft, almost metallic clicking sounds as the paws wriggle about. The armor feels cold to the touch, its sharp edges poke at the roughened skin of his palms when he brings it to his mouth, and then at his gums when he bites down.

            _Eyepatch?_ Quick-paced footsteps manage to reach him through his stupor and he gets up, whirls around to face his assailant. _Eyepatch!_

His heart lurches in his chest unexpectedly, and something warm slips between the knobs of his spine. Kaneki recognizes this man from somewhere. Instinctively, his kagune reaches out to protect him from the man’s quinque and pushes him off, _pushes him back_ somewhere in the mist. But the man’s insistent and strikes the blade of his weapon into one of the joints of his kagune.

“Eyepatch! I need you to tell me!” He _pleads_ with Kaneki, looking at him with the gleam of a ghost in his eyes. “Why… Why didn’t you kill me then?!”

Softer but not any less desperate, he continues, “That night, you were crying. Was that… all a lie?”

Kaneki gasps out when the man lashes out and cuts one strand of his kagune off clean; it lands on the cold floor with a loud _squelch_. Everything starts to hurt; his body as his kagune hurries to regenerate and his heart as this familiar feeling washes over him. _What does he want?_ The man clicks the shaft of his quinque open and reattaches one end to the red-gleaming end, switching from a one-handed quinque to two.

“I thought you would be able to give me an answer… as to why I’m still alive,” the man tells him, glaring. “You! The one who let me go!”

He’s unprepared for the assault, jerking backwards in a disconcerted way as the man hacks into him mercilessly, but manages to knock one weapon clean out of his hand. It doesn’t deter the man in the slightest. He steps down on one strand of Kaneki’s kagune and slices through, amputating another one, and another one.

Kaneki stares blindly at the man, deaf to everything but the stutter of his own heart between his ears.

There’s something oddly familiar about how the man pushes the head of his quinque into Kaneki’s ribs to push him to the ground, like he’s been in this exact same spot before. Rolling onto his stomach and getting his elbows under him, Kaneki tries to get upright, but the red flare of the man’s quinque prevents him from standing.

“That’s all, right? You’re just an ordinary ghoul, right? _Right?!”_

Suddenly, the memories click back together and Kaneki realizes he’s looking up at the same ghoul investigator he fought a while back. _He wants…_ Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, slide down his pale cheeks, and he clenches a fist, -- _but he can’t_ , -- bowing down before the investigator.

 “I… don’t want to eat anymore…” Kaneki confesses weakly, feeling the intense gaze of the ghoul investigator like a tangible weight on his back.

The investigator lowers his quinque and corpses start to fall from the ceiling, followed by the One-eyed Owl. He doesn’t know what’s happening only that there are claws snug around his midriff, and he calls out hoarsely in surprise. There’s a rush and then he’s airborne.

viii.

Tokyo’s on the threshold of winter.

Kaneki stuffs his hands in the pockets of his coat and keeps his head down, crossing the street under the bright glare of the skyscrapers and their video screens. There’s a nip in the evening air. People walk around him in a brisk pace, but don’t encroach on his personal bubble, and the punctuated peeping of the traffic lights speeds up as the green light starts to flicker. When he’s back on the boardwalk, someone catches his eye, a familiar someone in a gray coat standing at the brightly-lit shop window of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

This might be his only chance. It’s stupid and rash, but his hands are trembling in his pockets and Kaneki just… _wants._

He brushes past him, nudging the sharp of his elbow into the ghoul investigator’s lower back, and throws a meaningful glance over his shoulder when he hears the man go _oomph._ Their gazes meet and hold; and it’s like in the fights they’ve had before, something _sparks._ Kaneki watches how the investigator draws a deep breath, dropping the donut he just bought to the concrete, and immediately starts walking again in a quicker pace. Doesn’t need to check if the investigator’s following, the brisk footfalls echoing behind him are telltale enough. Ducking into a bystreet with a bunch of small, family-owned restaurants, he’s dead-set on leading the investigator away from the busy square.

Neon lights discolor his hair a washed-out red.

Kaneki breaks down in a jog, then into a sprint when the ghoul investigator gains ground on him, calling out a word that might as well have become his name, – Eyepatch! – and rounds the corner into a dead-end, an alleyway with a garbage container and the back exit of a restaurant. It’s dark aside from the light coming from the buzzing TL tube that hangs above the large back door. He can hear the investigator’s harsh breathing.

“Eyepatch,” the ghoul investigator rasps, before he composes himself, straightens his posture and brings the weight of his keen, knowing gaze onto Kaneki’s shoulders again. “I have questions—”

“And I might have answers,” Kaneki interrupts with a smile, standing still in the weak halo of pale light as the investigator comes closer, comes to tower over him.

_He’s so easy to read_ , he thinks silently as he watches a range of emotions cross the investigator’s handsome face, _like he wears his heart on his sleeve._ Frowning, the investigator clenches his hand into an angry fist. Kaneki does something stupid— _again_ , as if it’s a habit by now, standing here with his rival, alone and unmasked— and touches his fingertips to the man’s bone-white knuckles.

Glancing up at the investigator’s face with heavy-lidded eyes, Kaneki remarks matter-of-factly, “You’re so… _warm_.”

“And you’re _freezing_ ,” the ghoul investigator bristles in response, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

Kaneki interprets that as permission and shuffles closer, gingerly caressing the back of the man’s hand, up to the joint of his wrist. He brings his other hand flat to the investigator’s chest, –  the man warily raises an eyebrow – and balances himself on the tips of his toes, reaching for the investigator’s mouth, but the man intervenes, putting a hand on the handle of Kaneki’s hip.

“What are you _doing_?” He hisses lowly, a flush to his cheeks, and digs the pad of his thumb into Kaneki’s skin to keep him from moving.

His voice’s clipped as he replies, “I _want…_ ” Kaneki licks at his lower lip, searches for those haunted eyes and continues, “I want to kiss you.”

“ _O-oh_ ,” the investigator stutters stupidly and there’s a twitch at the corners of his mouth, an involuntary smile _maybe_ , but then his face falls, hardens. “Do you think I’m an idiot? This has to be a trap.”

He moves to pull away but Kaneki grabs him by the wrist, it’s the catalyst of a chain reaction: the ghoul investigator yanks his arm free and shoves at Kaneki until they’re in the shadows and his back’s flush against the wall, feeling the indents of the bricks against his skin, pinned down by two big hands on his shoulders. His smile’s close-lipped. His eyes are heavy-lidded still.

“I just want to kiss you,” Kaneki comments, before he leans in and tries his luck a second time, pushing back against the ghoul investigator’s strong-hold.

Their lips touch briefly, before the investigator snaps his head back in shock, blinking fast. “Eyepatch… Y-you… You can’t be serious about this,” he ends lamely, bright-faced, with his fingers drumming nervously over the knobs of Kaneki’s shoulders.

Kaneki chortles fondly, awash with _warmth_ for this man, and simply nods, waiting for the ghoul investigator to settle down. Those big hands ease down his upper arms and then come to rest on his ribs, down his flanks, that flush on his face darkening as he eventually settles those hands on Kaneki’s narrow hips, testing how far he can go before Kaneki pushes back and snaps at him, like he apparently half-expects him too.

– _Don’t stop_ – and – _Keep going –_ are things he wants to tell the ghoul investigator when he steps even closer and hunches forwards, bows his head. “This is—” the man swallows, a dry click that sounds so terribly loud from this close-by. “This is a big leap of faith I’m taking _here_.”

“I’m taking one too, you know,” Kaneki responds softly, carefully bringing his fingers to the hinge of the man’s jaw.

When he doesn’t shake them off, Kaneki touches their mouths together again, falling head-first into that all-too-familiar dark _want_ he felt when he tore a chunk out of the man’s shoulder. Fingertips delve into the meat on his hips when the kiss slowly deepens, hard enough to bruise and when the investigator threatens to move his hands away, afraid to hurt _apparently_ , Kaneki places his hand on one of them, steadying.

_He’s wanted for so long._

Shoving one leg between Kaneki’s in a bid to get even closer, the ghoul investigator bends down to lick shyly at the corner of his mouth, and Kaneki whines at the friction that muscled leg gives him, rubbing his crotch down. He tilts his head back, exposing the column of his throat, carding his fingers through the short, dark hair at the nape of the investigator’s back. Insistent kisses are pressed to the underside of his chin.

Kaneki helplessly bucks his hips against the man’s leg, trying to establish a rhythm that would work him up, and the springs in his belly tighten as his cock twitches. “ _Please_ ,” he keens, nestling a fist at the base of the investigator’s neck, digging his nails into the investigator’s wrist.

“This is more than just _kissing_ ,” the ghoul investigator deadpans, but his voice’s thick, heated, and he nervously thumbs the elastic band of Kaneki’s shorts.

He pushes the investigator’s head back down and kisses him again, rocking down harder, and the fabric of his underwear burns against his cock and balls, but it’s so _good_. Fingers tug his shorts down, and teeth clank together painfully when the investigator grumbles into the kiss, having found out about Kaneki’s _leggings._

“You wear _this_ many layers of clothing and you’re still a block of ice,” he mutters breathlessly after they’ve broken the kiss, pressing his forehead to the crown of Kaneki’s head.

Every retort Kaneki had ready on the tip of his tongue dies stillborn when the investigator sneaks a hand into his underwear and palms his cock. He barely manages to stifle a gasp at the unexpected warmth, gripping the short hairs even tighter in reflex, and eases up again when the ghoul investigator winces lightly in pain. Fingers wrap around the shaft of his cock and set a slow, hesitant pace.

“ _Please_ ,” Kaneki whispers groggily, dimly aware he’s still holding onto the man’s wrist. “Please, _I just want…_ ”

“Is this… _okay_? I mean, do you—” He pointedly rolls his hips into the loose circle of the investigator’s fingers to quiet the insecurity in his voice. “ _Ah_ ,” the investigator exhales sharply, starting to stroke that _bit_ faster to wrench a long-winded whine from Kaneki’s mouth.

He draws his head back to look in those bright, ghost-gleaming eyes, breathing him in directly, putting his palm flatly on the first knob of his spine, under the collar of his gray coat, under the collar of his neat, iron-pressed blazer. A small, almost bashful smile curls along the corners of the investigator’s mouth when he touches his other hand to Kaneki’s lower back, rubs up – between his shoulder blades to the base of his neck – and back down again, to the cleft of his ass, but not to the swell of it.

_“Eyepatch…”_

Another _please_ escapes him when he feels the investigator’s bulge press against his hip bone, and he’s reminded of how much taller the other man is, how much broader and bigger, and that dark desire stabs blindly at his stomach. He groans when the investigator brushes the heel of his palm to the head of his cock, accidentally smearing the precum open over his wrist.

_More, some part of him whispers, more, more, more._

The ghoul investigator kisses him, open-mouthed, searching for answers at the back of his teeth with the tip of his tongue. It’s enough to tip the scales, enough to push Kaneki over the edge into his orgasm, all little spasms and twitches and toe-curls as he spurts his spunk over his own abdomen and the sleeve of the investigator’s coat.

Kaneki _wants_ to return the favor – and the thought of getting on his knees for this man in the shadowed corner of an abandoned alleyway where the streetlight can’t reach them _excites_ him for some reason. Watches with a hungry expression on his face as the investigator shucks his coat and unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his pants, drags down the zipper and pulls out his dick.

“What are you doing?” The ghoul investigator whispers hotly, a dark blush splayed on his high cheekbones, when he sees Kaneki getting down on his knees.

“I’ve never…” He falters, scrapes his throat self-consciously and puts his hands on his upper legs. “I thought you might _want_ me to do this like… this?”

Raising his eyebrows, the investigator stammers, “W-what?! No!” He bites his inner cheek before continuing, “I’d rather _not_ have your mouth anywhere near… me.”

Unable to help himself, Kaneki laughs, because they’ve been making out sloppily for the past few minutes and of course, the man would create a fuss when his cock was concerned. He gets back up and dusts his knees off.

“Whatever you _want_ ,” he says softly, smiling, coming to stand so very close again.

Kaneki jerks the investigator off and kisses him some more, on the mouth, on the hinge of his jaw, on the column of his throat, and right above his clavicle when the investigator comes all over his hand. They jump apart when they hear the back door slam open. His eye involuntarily turns red and he hides his face away from the ghoul investigator, who hurriedly tucks himself back in his pants and bends over to collect his coat.

It’s his best shot at a fast escape, they both know this as they stare at each other, and Kaneki takes it, darts past the ghoul investigator into the pale light of the TL tube, out of the alleyway and into the bright neon signs of the street.

ix.

Kaneki asks the ghoul investigator for his name the next time he sees him.

         – **_Amon,_** his name is **_Amon_** – 

And then he lobs his arm _clean off_.

x.

“Amon…”

His voice sounds gravelly to his own ears.

For Kaneki, an entire lifetime has passed since he’s last seen him, and he suspects the same could be said for Amon. They regard each other. Amon looks exhausted, pale and gaunt in the cheeks, having lost a decent amount of weight and muscle, but he’s still so hauntingly beautiful, with the gleam of more than a few ghosts in his bright eyes.

“Eyepatch.”

His heart lurches in his chest and something warm slips between the knobs of his spine.

_\--“Why did you let me live back then?”_

_\--“Because I **wanted** you to.”_

A pause, and Kaneki instinctively draws closer to Amon in the relative darkness, touches his fingers to those warm hands.

_\--“I **still** want you to.”_

.


End file.
